‘Airwriting’ Glove Converts Arm Gestures Into Text Messages

It’s a good week for people with arms as earlier this week, Thalmic Labs introduced its MYO Armband which allows the user to control their computer simply by gesturing. And in addition to that impressive piece of tech, Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is showing of its glove that can turn arm waves into text.

The GKIT’s “airwriting” glove system allows the person wearing the device to draw letters in the air as if they’re wearing a pen. The system can recognize the letters that are being drawn in the air and convert them into text which can then be put into emails, text messages or any other mobile application.

The glove is equipped with accelerometers and gyroscopes that make it possible to detect hand movements while the converted data is transmitted to a computer wirelessly. The computer uses a pattern recognition software that helps it to determine if you’re actually in the process of airwriting or if you’re picking your nose.

The system currently has an error rate of 11 percent, although that rate could drop to three percent once the software recognizes the user’s airwriting style. Let’s just hope your chicken-scratch handwriting turns into legible airwriting.